CHAPTER I 



Though Greenland be a Country of a vast extent, yet it affords 

 but a narrow field for any observation or remarks of conse- 

 quence; there being no strong or well-built towns to meet 

 with; no well-ordered Polity or Civil Government; no fine 

 Arts and Sciences, or the like; but only a number of mean, 

 wretched, and ignorant Gentiles, who live and improve the 

 land according to their low capacity. HANS EGEDE, 1741. 



The colonisation of Greenland by Eric the Red; its re-colonisation 

 by Hans Egede in 1721. From Copenhagen to Disko Island in 

 1921. The Danish Arctic Station. The last resting-place of the 'Fox.' 



IN the latter part of the tenth century there lived 

 in Iceland a 'courageous, indomitable, and 

 quarrelsome man' called Eric the Red, who had 

 come there as a child from Norway with his out- 

 lawed father. Having in his turn been declared an 

 outlaw, Eric about the year 983 equipped a ship 

 and set sail for a land which had recently been 

 discovered by one Gunbjorn to the west of Iceland. 

 After sighting the south-east coast of the newly- 

 discovered country he rounded the southern head- 

 land, christened Cape Farewell some centuries 

 later by John Davis, and landed on the south- 

 west coast. Eric soon returned to Iceland and, 

 believing that a 'comely' name would induce 

 others to throw in their lot with him, he called the 

 country Greenland. The result was, thirty-five ships 

 left Iceland and fourteen of them reached their 

 destination. 



The wooden shells of old Scandinavian ships 

 discovered in modern times enable us more 



